The Life And Times Of An `Articulate Hoodlum`

Books

February 2, 1986|By Terry Kelleher, Book Editor

The New York news media went to town in December over the public rub-out of mob boss Paul Castellano outside a Manhattan restaurant.

As the Empire State`s most distinguished Italian-American, Gov. Mario Cuomo criticized the press for its loose use of the word ``Mafia,`` pointing out that ``organized crime is not an exclusive Italian club.``

What`s so exclusive? Nicholas Pileggi`s Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family (Simon and Schuster, $17.95) is the absorbing story of a career criminal named Henry Hill. Funny, ``Hill`` doesn`t sound Italian, and darned if his father wasn`t born in dear old Ireland.

It`s true that Hill`s mother hailed from Sicily, but Henry never relied on parental influence. He worked his way up. In 1955, at the age of 11, the lad found an after-school job at the Euclid Avenue Taxicab and Limousine Service across the street from his Brooklyn home. The cab stand served as headquarters for gangster ``Paulie`` Vario and his four criminally inclined brothers.

At 12, the Hill boy began running errands for Vario. At 13, he went about ``cashing`` counterfeit $20 bills in the company of a ``junkie horse player.`` At 16, he was arrested for the first time (credit-card fraud) and his mob mentors threw a party for him. ``It was like a graduation,`` Hill remembers. He did his postgraduate work in smuggling, auto theft, arson and hijacking, with an elective in pistol-whipping. He also studied Judaism to please his bride, the former Karen Freid.

Still intellectually curious at 24, Hill accepted Vario`s invitation to enter an earn-while-you-learn program in big-time bookmaking. The admission fee was steep, but Hill didn`t go to the government for a student loan. He merely dipped into his share of the $480,000 Air France robbery at Kennedy Airport.

Sorry we can`t show you a recent photograph of this successful fellow. Almost six years ago, Hill assumed a new identity under the Federal Witness Protection Program. As Pileggi puts it, ``he decided to cease to exist.`` It seemed like a viable option at the time. Hill was looking at a possible life sentence for drug conspiracy, and prosecutors were eager to learn about his role in the $6-million Lufthansa Airlines heist, the biggest cash robbery in U.S. history. Mindful that 10 other participants in the Lufthansa job had turned up dead -- and fearful that his violent Irish buddy, Jimmy ``The Gent`` Burke, was out to make him No. 11 -- Hill felt a need for protection.

Pileggi, a veteran crime reporter who writes for New York magazine, was less than enthusiastic when Hill`s lawyer first approached him with a book proposal. He had grown ``bored with the egomaniacal ravings of illiterate hoods masquerading as benevolent godfathers.`` Hill, however, turned out to be that rare bird, ``an articulate hoodlum,`` and Pileggi wisely let him talk. Hill`s wife, oft betrayed but stubbornly loyal, added her two cents and then some. The result is something of an oral history, with background and perspective (occasionally ironic) provided by the author.

Not that Hill himself lacks a sense of irony. He`s not only a ``wiseguy`` -- gangland terminology for ``member of the criminal club`` -- but a wisecracker as well.

Hill describes a bar frequented by hijackers as ``a supermarket for airport swag . . . a commodities exchange for stolen goods.`` He discusses the pressures on businessmen who ``front`` for the outfit: ``That`s the way it is with a wiseguy partner. He gets his money no matter what. You got no business? F--- you, pay me. You had a fire? F--- you, pay me. The place got hit by lightning and World War III started in the lounge? F--- you, pay me.`` Some of Hill`s humor is downright homey: ``I always had money stashed around the place. Sometimes I had swag stacked up the wall. I also had guns around the place. You`ll find that most wiseguy wives do their own housework, no matter how rich they are, because strangers can`t be trusted to keep their mouths shut.``

The publisher touts Wiseguy as ``more extraordinary -- and more compelling -- than any novel,`` and the book easily lives up to its billing. It has elements worthy of The Godfather : the ``wiseguy`` who thinks he`s being escorted to his official Cosa Nostra initiation, when in fact his appointment is with Death;; the young druggie who informs on his hoodlum-father, who in turn approves the mob execution of his son (``Hit the rat``); the piano-wire garroting of a duplicitous hood, and his burial ``under a layer of cement right next to the bocci court.``